


tuesday

by bebitched



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-14
Updated: 2008-06-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 10:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bebitched/pseuds/bebitched
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>“Are you awake?”</em></p><p>A Tuesday morning someday in the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tuesday

**Author's Note:**

> I only have one warning for this fic: not everything is how it first seems.

 

Today is a Tuesday and Tuesdays always mean gray skies and boredom and disappointment.

 

Pam holds on in the morning. Tugs her hands onto the parachute strings that are keeping her inside the squishy bubble that is her dreams, pulls all her limbs towards her chest as far as they’ll go as if she’s getting ready to jump a cannon ball off a diving board into the coldest water. It’s this second that she can balance the line between both worlds, reality and imagination, knowing everything she knows about how life really is without the sharpness because sleep hushes over all the pointy edges. But she’ll slip and awake and it’s not really so bad because she can feel him everywhere; warm, solid, so humanly male, and that’s enough to occupy her. Yet she can feel his breath in short bursts on her neck, knows he’s awake, knows the day will start soon and he’ll be preoccupied with breakfast and work and life. But for now she has him all to herself.

 

“Are you awake?”

 

“Yeah,” Jim responds huskily, clearing the drowsiness out of his voice. She thinks she can hear him murmur _I hope so_.

 

“Good.”

 

There’s nothing but breathing and golden sunlight and a draft from the broken window for a few moments before, “I love you.”

 

Pam can’t help but smile because after all this time of disjointed visits she still can’t help but love the feel of those words against her skin.

 

“Love you too.”

 

His hands move steady up her spine towards the base of her neck where he brushes aside the curls teasing her skin.

 

“What do you miss most?”

 

Because she can’t help but ask. Jim stills his movement and instead settles his palm on her waist, as if trying to steady her or maybe himself. His other hand traces down her arm until his fingers can tangle in hers.

 

“Your fingers.” Jim’s hands retreat to her hip. “And your smile.”

 

She smiles slightly at that, but every sunshine needs rain and so there’s tears on her cheeks as she leans back into his chest.

 

“I can’t stay.”

 

“What do you miss?” And she knows it’s just another distraction to keep her here a little longer. He always tries. Pam can’t help but let him.

 

“The way you throw your head back when you laugh. Letting you distract me. The way I always knew that you were watching me, like I could feel it. Inside jokes. Jello.”

 

“No past tense.”

 

It’s a rule and it’s unflinchingly rigid, like all the guidelines they’d set over lunch room breaks and alters and death beds.

 

“Sorry….” Then, “I should go.”

 

“Don’t,” and he’s holding onto her hip tighter now. If she still had flesh there for him to really bruise she’s sure there’d be patterns in the shape of his fingers for her to remember the way he used to touch her, the way he still would if either of them had a choice. But she isn’t allowed to keep sentimental things now, beyond her memories and her imagination and these seconds that she can try to save up in a jar like fireflies in summer before reality takes over. “Please.”

 

And she really wishes that she could. That she could wrap arms around him and rock him until he could finally sleep because he wouldn’t be afraid anymore that she’d be gone when he woke up. That this was still her life. That he could have his back. That Tuesday mornings were still theirs to tuck in pockets for keepsakes and rainy days didn’t mean that it was fate tapping on her grave. That they had more time. That she could stay.

 

But she can’t so neither can they.

 

“I love you.”

 

And _God_ she wishes that her tears would leave a stain as proof that she had ever been there.

 

Jim wakes to an empty bed and a ruined promise and the bitterness of past tense on his tongue.

 

But today is a Tuesday so he can’t really be surprised. Because it was a Tuesday that they met and a Tuesday that she died, and if he looks close enough with a magnifying glass and a map, every passing Monday night marks another week that they’d known each other and another week that he’d gone without her hands pressing into his chest and his lips on her jaw and her laughter in his ear and he hates counting time. If he lets the days slip like bitter soap suds out of his hands it means that there’s just more time inflating the space between them, but if he ticks them off on some mental calendar it slows the healing that everyone keeps telling him is a sure thing. Yet time doesn’t fill his arms at night or her chair during the day, doesn’t warm the sheets or brush the hair out of his face and it’s a Tuesday so he has to decide all over again.

 

Dwell or move on. Stall or run away. Fight or flight. Live or die.

 

Because today is a Tuesday and Tuesdays always mean gray skies and boredom and disappointment.

 


End file.
